Abstract
In August 2012 Kate O'Regan, a former judge of the South African Constitutional Court, was appointed by the premier of the Western Cape to head the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of Police Inefficiency and a Breakdown in Relations between SAPS and the Community in Khayelitsha. Two years later, on 25 August 2014, the commission submitted its final report and recommendations. In this exchange O'Regan reflects from the inside out on some aspects of the public inquiry into policing in Khayelitsha. Here one finds reference to judicial independence and organisational autonomy of commissions of inquiry; the value of comparative lesson drawing for process design; the importance of creating safe spaces for all participants; and honouring the contributions of participants. Policing, O'Regan concludes, is a truly challenging enterprise. Both political and police leadership carry a moral responsibility to engage systemic and other challenges as identified in both of the Marikana and Khayelitsha reports. Not to do so would imply the abdication of responsibility to address the safety and security concerns of South African citizens.
Highlights
Kate O’Regan (KO’R): There was no doubt in my mind that the commission would want to be completely autonomous in the way it approached its tasks, in the way it managed its hearings and processes and in the way it presented its report
The first thing I did was to look at the Western Cape Commissions Act, which is slightly different from the national commissions Act, and I read the case law on commissions
We spent some time thinking about what the terms of reference could mean, given that this was a provincial commission of inquiry exercising provincial powers of oversight over the SAPS, and what that would mean for the way in which we designed our processes
Summary
KO’R: In the case of the Khayelitsha Commission the terms of reference effectively came straight from the Constitution, but at a point of intersection in the Constitution that distinguishes the role of national and provincial government in relation to policing services. We spent some time thinking about what the terms of reference could mean, given that this was a provincial commission of inquiry exercising provincial powers of oversight over the SAPS, and what that would mean for the way in which we designed our processes.
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